Motivation Mojo: Be Honest – The Real Reasons Behind Your Goal

Motivation Mojo: Be Honest – The Real Reasons Behind Your Goal

I often see clients who are getting frustrated at their lack of progress towards a desired outcome. They describe knowing what they should be doing, or what they need to be doing, or what they want to be doing, but are unable to find the motivation to get going or keep it going. Sound familiar?

Getting connected to your goal

Often a reason for this struggle with sustaining motivation, is that you aren’t truly connected to your goal, and haven’t identified the real reasons behind your goal.

Do you know what your why is? What is the why behind your goals? It is really easy to focus on what we want to achieve, and how we are going to do it. If you haven’t got to the heart of the reasons behind your goal, you are going to find your motivation fluctuates and are unlikely to sustain the efforts over time. You will get easily distracted by other ideas or perceived priorities. When it starts getting tough, you will be more likely to give up and believe that you can’t do it.

What value does this goal have for you?

One of the corner stones of human behaviour is that you are motivated to do a behaviour if it has a value to you. The key in this statement is that it needs to be of value to you. The reasons that can motivate your friend are not going to be the reasons that will motivate you.

We each have a set of values that are important to us. They are the qualities that we hold in high regard for ourselves and other people. The qualities we would like to be remembered for. This is a fundamental stage in understanding yourself and the reasons behind your actions and inaction’s. Your values do change over time too. So the values and reasons, that were important to you 10 years ago are not necessarily going to be the same now, especially if there have been big life changes, like meeting your life partner, having children, career changes etc.

Once you know what the values are that drive you, you can think about the goal you are working towards and how they fit together.

What are the core values or principles that you would like to be living your life by? The principles that are integral to how you are living your life? Make yourself a list.

It is time to be really honest with yourself

It is time to be really honest with yourself. What is this goal going to give you? What desire or needs will it answer? How is it fitting with your overall aspirations for life? We all have those things we really want our life to feature or look like, sometimes we don’t verbalise them, or really think about them. But for things to feel worth it and have priority in our increasingly busy lives, they need to be aligned with this. This can be hard to unpick, and again is crucial for your success.

For me completing a 50 mile cycle ride for the first time in my adult life, was because I want to live a balanced, healthy, fun life. I really want to embed exercise into my weekly routines in a way that works for me and my family. That I don’t have to decide or struggle to do. The 50 mile goal fits with this. It gave me a focus, a purpose which in turn enabled me to amalgamate it into my routines and priorities, whilst aligning with my values. This made the excuses harder to justify and gave me a tangible reason to say I need to do this for me.

So, to get the real reasons behind your goal ask yourself these questions:

When I achieve this goal, what will it do for me?

Which of my values does this goal nurture?

How does this goal fit with my overall aspirations for my life?

Keep this somewhere you can come back to, on the days when you are questioning whether it is all worth it. Your answers to this is like the heart of your motivation.

Would you love to have help to get an awesome plan in place for your goals? Grab your free motivational e-course here – your own copy of Finding Your Motivation Mojo workbook along with 3 videos to help you.